By Tunji Adedeji
The National Population Commission, NPC has commenced a training workshop to conduct trial census in nine local government areas across Imo State.
NPC said the Commission is determined to successfully conduct the trial census in Imo state, in their quest to deliver a credible, reliable, acceptable and verifiable census to the nation.
Prof. Uba Nnabue, the Federal Commissioner of NPC, Imo State, disclosed this on Thursday during the activities marking the official flag-off of the trial census on Thursday.
The NPC Commissioner said the commission demands high performance and not excuses from participants.
According to him,” It is in this regard that the Commission will leave no stone unturned to ensure that the Trial Census is carried out meticulously, professionally and scientifically to provide a good foundation for the smooth conduct of the 2023 Population and Housing Census.
“At the National level, the Trial Census will cover thirty-six states and FCT.
Six LGAs have been selected from six States in the six geo-political zones
of Nigeria for full population enumeration while forty-five (45) EAs have each from the remaining thirty States and the FCT. In total, four thousand, six hundred and eight (4,608) EAs have been selected for this Trial Census to test run their suitability and readiness for the actual census.”
Prof Nnabue said the Commission will use a total of 13,500 field functionaries which comprise of 11,510 Enumerators, 1,529 supervisors and 823 facilitators for the trial census.
Nnebue said this is a huge investment and we must ensure it’s usefulness in Imo State, through the e-recruitment portal we have recruited a total of 109 personnel as Ad-hoc staff for this trial census.
The NPC boss further said functionaries were selected from across the 9 randomly preselected Supervisory Areas (SA) containing at least five Enumeration Areas in the 9 L.G.A(s) picked for the trial census. For the avoidance of doubt, the following are the affected areas.
Also speaking, the Imo State Commissioner for (Local Government & Chieftaincy Affairs) Mrs. Ruby Emele said the state government led by Gov Hope Uzodiinma is ready to give all the needed assistance and support required to make the exercise a success..
Emele who represented the Imo State government thank President Mohammadu Buhari for his courage to conduct next year census.
She said,” Now you have come for trial census we are aware of your presence and Imo State Government is ready to give you the needed assistant.
What your here for is serious business. Please be serious, punctual and put in your best and be very free to ask questions when you don’t understand, she averred.
